


A Reasonable Facsimile

by orphan_account



Category: Fringe
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-24
Updated: 2011-03-24
Packaged: 2017-10-17 06:10:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/173757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lincoln grinned when Peter laughed, but the sound died down quickly, faster than he wanted it to and he felt everything start to tingle in anticipation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Reasonable Facsimile

Lincoln sought solace (although, really that wasn’t right word for it but who was he to tell his head that it was wrong) in someone else. He didn’t look like Peter (he was tall and thin and square–shouldered) and he didn’t speak like Peter, didn’t speak calmly, every word painted with amusement and edges of sadness at the world (he spoke quickly, seriously and jokingly). He wasn’t Peter but, in the right lighting, in a lonely diner a block or so away from the FBI building, in a bar or behind closed doors of a bedroom, he was a reasonable facsimile of a man that Lincoln had barely ever touched, had known for only twenty–four hours, give or take a few minutes.

Damn him and his ability to fall so quickly and fall so hard.

Damn.

– –

They – him and his agent with his strong jaw and cheeky smile – were sitting at the diner again, steaming mugs of coffee placed parallel in front of them, plates of unfinished food sitting close to the end of the table, ready for a young, pretty waitress to swing by and scoop them up and away. Lincoln’s heart hurt and he blamed it on the french fries fighting against him. He watched the guy’s fingers spinning the fork around, turning, bending, fingernails running the length of the metal and Lincoln swallowed (he was probably doing it on purpose, he knew Lincoln too well, it wasn’t like they were strangers before _this_ started happening).

“Something’s bothering you,” he said and Lincoln looked down into his mug, flicking the side of the porcelain to watch the liquid ripple. (That sounded like something Peter would say).

(Every time his phone rang he crawled out of his skin, a puddle on the floor, bones creaking and aching until he picked it up and realized it wasn’t Peter. Every time a new case showed up on his desk, he’d hope it was weird enough, that they could converge again but it never was. “Be careful what you wish for” he had said with a quick grin and Lincoln thought it meant something. But maybe not. He couldn’t really tell this other agent any of this, even though it danced precariously on the tip of his tongue.)

“I’m fine,” Lincoln lied. He always lied.

“Bullshit,” the man said and Lincoln gazed up at him, surprised. “Lincoln.”

“Yes, Roger.” Lincoln pushed the glasses up his noise and adjusted in his seat, folding his hands first in his lap and then on the table.

“Who is he?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Right. Play it stupid for one of the agency’s best. There’s no way that plan could collapse like dominos.

“Bullshit,” Roger said again, loud enough that a couple at another booth lifted their heads to pay attention, going back to their business when it didn’t look like anything worth recording on their phones. “I know what you’re doing.”

“Do you?” He tried to sound innocent, not aggressive, but he’s not sure it came out right. He swipes a finger against his plate, grabbing some fried crumbs and cold ketchup and licks it off, smiling just a little because he might as well just keep digging himself deeper into the hole.

“I’ve done the same thing.” Roger pauses, blinking, thinking it over. “You don’t have to tell me,” he decides, “but you have to figure out what you want,” another hesitation, “ _who_ you want.”

“If it were only that easy,” Lincoln replies, sitting back, resting his head against the plush booth, feeling his heart rush back into his chest from where it had been pounding, loose and noisy in his ears when the three word question first swirled around his skull. “He’s got clearance higher than Kilimanjaro,” Lincoln says, keeping Peter’s name out of it, hoping that he’s vague enough to get it past him or that Roger is a decent enough guy to know how to keep his mouth shut when if figures it out (which, yeah, doubtful), “I thought I did, too,” Lincoln glances to the floor, bites on his bottom lip while he lets the thought process, “I guess it got revoked.”

“And you can’t find him. Or he won’t find you.” Roger fills in the gaps seamlessly and, okay, maybe he wasn’t making it up when he said he’d done the same thing before.

“Something like that.”

“I don’t think you’re looking hard enough.”

Yeah. Maybe not.

(But Peter wasn’t trying very hard either).

– –

It was a week after his conversation with Roger (and four days after they ‘broke up’ which really consisted of Roger saying that they had fun, sure, but until Lincoln sorted his life out they had to stop but maybe he could talk to him one day in the future if things don’t work out (not that he was trying to curse anything) because he’d really like to try that thing again, you know, if he wanted to) and Lincoln was drunk enough that the room was spinning, that the floor was bumpy and far away but at least he was home.

Picking up his phone, he searched blurrily and clumsily through his contact list, over and over, wishing he had asked Peter for his number before they parted ways and he kept scrolling until a neat row of nine numbers at the very bottom of the list leapt out at him and he had to rub his eyes because there was the distinct possibility that he was imagining it or that maybe he had just put the number for the local pizza place there and forgot about it (it had happened before and he hadn’t even had a drop of liquor in him).

Pressing the ‘call’ button, his fingers shook. He sprawled out on the couch and burned holes into the ceiling.

“Hello?”

That was definitely Peter.

Lincoln hung up.

He waited for Peter to call back but he didn’t so Lincoln did it for him, listening to the dial tone until:

“Hello? Who is this?”

“Peter?” Lincoln hated how his voice sounded: slurred and quiet and he licked at the inside of his mouth and tasted alcohol. He wondered, to himself, what Peter would taste like and he didn’t notice he had done anything stupid until Peter said:

“…Lincoln. You’re drunk. Which is why I’m going to forgive you and then pretend you didn’t say that.”

“Say what?” Lincoln grinned when Peter laughed, but the sound died down quickly, faster than he wanted it to and he felt everything start to tingle in anticipation.

“Why did you call me.” It wasn’t angry. Just curious. Peter whispered like there was somebody else next to him that he was worried about waking up and Lincoln sighed because it wasn’t him.

“Because you never called _me_.”

“You said to call if we ever needed your help.” He said it so easily, like he had planned for this to happen and something in the back of Lincoln’s throat felt acidic and wordlessly told him that this wasn’t going to end the way he had written it a thousand times before.

“I find it hard to believe,” Lincoln waited, gathered the words and put them in the right order, “that you haven’t needed it. It’s been…” he tried to calculate but it was all beginning to look like squiggles of chalk on a sidewalk, “a really long time.”

“Yeah, well…” but Peter didn’t offer an explanation. Lincoln hadn’t really expected one. “Look. You need to sleep this off. It’s three in the morning.” Lincoln didn’t answer. “Lincoln. Okay?” Nothing, so Peter kept talking. “Could you at least grunt or something so I know you’re still there.”

“I’m here.”

“You’ll go to sleep.”

“Did you put your number in my phone.”

“Go to sleep, Lincoln.”

That was the last thing Peter said, a sentence with a chuckle attached, with a pitying smack, followed by a dial tone.

Lincoln listened to it for an hour and a half before tossing the phone against a wall, curling up into himself and falling asleep within minutes of closing his eyes.

– –

He put his phone back together in the morning as he sipped coffee to battle the headache that pounded like a rockslide around his brain and down his neck.

Sliding through the contact list, he found the number again, all the way at the bottom, right where he had seen it the night before. He was surprised he remembered the exchange, although he probably had bits and pieces in the wrong arrangement.

His teeth grinding against one another, his jaw set, he hit the ‘call’ button and waited.

He got voicemail.

“I just wanted to say… um… it’s Lincoln. Sorry. I wanted to say I was sorry for last night. What I _said_ last night. I was… very, very drunk. And… right. I am washing my hands of all of… this. I apologize.”

– –

Peter called him back later that afternoon.

Lincoln didn’t answer.


End file.
